Grassroots sports and acts of citizenship: exploring how social movements mobilise sports to foster social and political participation in low-income superdiverse urban locales #1679817 Ulster University - Belfast Campus in United Kingdom

Social movements are increasingly using sports as a tool for engagement and mobilisation as well as for addressing a broad spectrum of societal challenges, spanning from homelessness, gentrification, and anti-migrant sentiments to combating homophobia and sexism (Genovesi, 2023; Jarvie and Ahrens 2019; Milan and Milan, 2020). In this context, grassroots sport has the potential to facilitate what Isin and Nielsen (2008) call ‘acts of citizenship’, that is moments and spaces of struggle for often marginalised subjects. This project seeks to explore how social movements mobilise grassroots sports to foster social and political participation among low-income, racialised and nonconforming subjects in ‘super-diverse’ urban locales (Vertovec, 2007; Pemberton and Phillimore, 2016). In particular, the study aims to answer the following questions:

?          What are the key features of sports that are mobilised by social movements? Towards which aims are these features mobilised?

?          What are the meanings that activists and participants attach to their participation in sport within social movements operating in ‘super-diverse’ urban locales?

?          To what extent do sports facilitate social and political participation among low-income, racialised and nonconforming subjects in ‘super-diverse’ urban locales?

To address these questions, priority will be given to studies that use collaborative qualitative approaches, such as Participant Action Research (Fals-Borda, 1987), and innovative methods of inquiry, such as photovoice (Wang and Burris, 1997), walking interviews (Frisina, 2022), or GIS mapping (Richardson, 2013).

To what extent do sports facilitate social and political participation among low-income, racialised and nonconforming subjects in ‘super-diverse’ urban locales?

To address these questions, priority will be given to studies that use collaborative qualitative approaches, such as Participant Action Research (Fals-Borda, 1987), and innovative methods of inquiry, such as photovoice (Wang and Burris, 1997), walking interviews (Frisina, 2022), or GIS mapping (Richardson, 2013).